It’s a busy afternoon in Queens, as the Mets have released reliever Jose Valverde and fired hitting coach Dave Hudgens.

Valverde never secured the closer gig in New York, but he was reasonably effective before an ugly outing today–or at least as effective as the Mets could have possibly expected him to be–with a 4.05 ERA and 23/9 K/BB ratio in 20 innings. He gave up four runs today to inflate that ERA to 5.66.

Hudgens, meanwhile, takes the fall for an offense that currently ranks 14th among NL teams in OPS but is actually tied for fifth in runs per game with 3.92, just slightly below the league average of 3.95. Hitting coaches are notoriously tough to evaluate or analyze, but the Mets’ lineup isn’t exactly filled with high-upside bats.

This was his fourth season as the Mets’ hitting coach and in the previous three years the lineup ranked 11th, 12th, and 6th in runs scored among NL teams, so considering the lack of results he certainly got a lengthy leash. Minor league hitting coordinator Lamar Johnson has been named as Hudgens’ replacement.